Cold Fusion Now and e-Cat Site Join Forces

I am happy to announce that I have accepted an opportunity to join Ruby Carat to become an author and editor at Cold Fusion Now. In addition, I will be helping her with moderation and other duties on the site. The cold fusion story is expanding so rapidly and in so many different directions that it has become increasingly difficult for either one of us to keep track of the many facets of the story. Perhaps this is true more so for myself than for Ruby, as Cold Fusion Now has many intelligent and talented people contributing on a regular basis. These individuals include patent attorney David French. Cold Fusion Radio’s James Martinez, the ubiquitous and knowledgeable Brad Arnold, filmmaker Eli Elliot, and occasionally even Dr. Edmund Storms. And that’s just for starters. Click here to see more of the Cold Fusion Now Crew. With this group of talent to work with, I would have been foolish to pass up the opportunity to come on-board.

Of course, I would be remiss if I didn’t also thank those who have contributed to e-Cat Site over the past year, most notably Tom Baccei and Mr. Johannes Van den Bogaert. Also a shout out to Ms. Sojourner Soo, the free-energy free spirit who pops in from time to time on various sites to fight the good fight. She was kind enough to provide the first article at e-Cat Site.

Of course, e-Cat Site would have been nothing without the regular readers and commenters. I hope you all will come on over to Cold Fusion Now and check out the articles and resources available. You will not be disappointed. I know many who have been following the story make the rounds and have your favorite sites for cold fusion news and updates, so there is some overlap amongst readership for both Cold Fusion Now and e-Cat Site. But let’s be honest, we all have our favorite sites for one reason or another. I hope the readers of Cold Fusion Now will welcome my input, and I hope the faithful of e-Cat Site will now become regular readers and commenters on Cold Fusion Now.

Ruby Carat and I are committed to bring you the most accurate and up-to-date coverage that we are capable of. As I write this, Cold Fusion Now is undergoing a number of upgrades to ensure that the site is accessible, readable and informative. There are new features and upgrades in the works as well. We both believe that cold fusion is ready to soar to new heights, both in terms of the state of the art of the technology and the coverage that will ensue. We want to make sure that we are ready for the added traffic that this will undoubtedly bring.

As for e-Cat Site, for right now it will remain open as an archive of the happenings of the last year, as well as a resource regarding cold fusion history. It is no lenr-canr.org, but I have made a conscious effort to provide enough background history for people to understand what cold fusion is and how it has progressed, especially over the last 20 years. I initially started the site as an information resource for friends and acquaintances regarding cold fusion. Many of them were as stunned as I, and I’m sure many of you, that cold fusion had never been truly debunked and in fact was being taken seriously by a growing number of people. Much of this interest was spurred by Andrea Rossi’s e-Cat, for which the site is named. I subsequently started writing articles and opened the site for comments so I could narrate the story from my own perspective, devoid of the constant sneering of the closed-minded and committed opponents. However, now I think the story has outgrown the intent and scope of the site, and it is now time to move on. It will probably be accessible for another year, or until such time we can move content over to Cold Fusion Now. However, there will be no new articles or news updates posted.

As mentioned above, I will also be helping moderate CFN. Just like at e-Cat Site, I welcome healthy debate. Disagreements are to be expected, especially when discussing something as complex as cold fusion. However, comments need to remain respectful of the subject matter, the site, and, most importantly, the person to which the comment is directed. Comments consisting solely, mostly or repeatedly of insults, taunts and inflammatory language are not acceptable and will be deleted, likely without warning. Repeated attempts to post such comments will be result in being banned. This is not the site to be contentious for sport. There are other sites that allow such behavior to go on unabated but this is not one of them.

Once again, I welcome the opportunity to join Cold Fusion Now, and I look forward to working with Ruby and the crew. I think we are in for some very exciting times ahead.

Welcome Ben, Ruby has the gift of seeing the bigger picture, that Cold Fusion has highlighted in the horrific failures of main-line science, not just with Cold Fusion but many other equally important subjects that are irrationally denied by the establishment.
Do you feel the same way or are you solely concerned with the Cold Fusion aspect.

Hi Ben, welcome. Ruby has been doing a commendable job, overseeing a pro-LENRish crowd. I am supportive of Ruby’s sacrifice and commitment, but I do get a bit grumpy we we get off track. There are so many other causes, politics, fields of science, that while perhaps important in their own rite, offer a distraction, or worse a rabbit-trail OFF the focus of this new technology, and scientific theory. I hope that doesn’t mean my commentary is part of the anti-LENR crowd when in fact it is the opposite. Adding other topics, like Global Warming for instance, while perhaps a laudable topic, is not a topic directly related to LENR, and opens up a whole other sphere of debate that muddies the water as it were.

So, if I bring this up from time to time, please know it is because I love science, and I am keenly interested in discussing/debating this topic, and want to stay on task. Ruby has been gracious. I appreciate that very much. I was just hoping we could have some common understandings of boundaries. I welcome any science actually related to and contributing to our understanding of this phenomena, but must contend when we are getting off track.

I assure you I will not go off topic like Ruby…bu I likely will go off-topic like Ben. Cold fusion has implications that go beyond the dry technical details, and it goes beyond a cheaper electric bill. Dennis Bushnell said that LENR has the possibility of, by itself, changing geo-politics, geo-economics and solving climate and energy. So he acknowledges that the technology has implications that go beyond the merely technical. Those issues need to be touched on to give the story context. That is what I want to do, in addition to covering the particulars of the science itself. I want to provide context to the story. I like history for the same reason, because it brings what is happening today within the proper context.

That doesn’t mean you have to agree with everything that I or anyone else says. I would just ask you (and everyone else) to refrain from outbursts, tantrums, personal attacks, sneering, mockery, etc. I’m grumpy too, and to sign on and see that kind of nonsense tends to make me grumpier. Grumpy enough to use the delete button liberally..

But Ruby tells me that you do add to the discussion in many instances and I will look forward to hearing what you have to say.

Thanks for your readership at e-Cate Site and finding your way over here. I liked the theme I had over there too, and I chose it for the reasons you mentioned, because it was clean, simple and linear. But at the time I picked it, this story was clean and linear too, at least it was to me. Andrea Rossi said that such and such would happen on such and such a day. There was enough room on the site to add background history and other side stories without it getting too crowded. But over the last year the story has expanded and gone in a dozen different directions. I felt the linear construct was no longer adequate to cover a story that is becoming asymmetric. It has become difficult not only to cover the multiple angles, but even harder still to fit them on 1 page or create pages and link them altogether in a logical fashion to where I didn’t have to write a tutorial.

Ruby, on the other had, had the foresight to upgrade this site to accommodate the increased amount of info but, unfortunately, not the time to learn all the bells and whistles that came with it. With us merging the 2 sites, she will have the time to refine things and learn how to drive this blog. It isn’t easy. Just my simple site took many, many hours a week to manage. Keeping the look simple and clean took more and more work as the site got bigger.

It would also be helpful if you could define “jumbled mess.” It is hard to address any issues you might have based on such a vague term. Is it jumbled because everything is not in a straight line? Are the color scheme and graphics bothersome? It is difficult to navigate? Too many pictures? Too few? What?

While we refine things, here is a helpful hint to help you, every one for that matter, view the CFN Now site. Use Ctrl + and Ctrl – on the keyboard to zoom in and out on the screen. You zoom out to view the big picture, and then zoom in when something catches your eye and you want a better look. It works not only on CFN, but practically every site on in the internet.

On a final note, while you do not particularly like this layout, you have to admit that it is still better than the Facebook Timeline format….by a long shot.

Ben…Who?
There may be people who know you from the e-Cat Site. With a short browse there I still know you only as Ben. What ‘s the problem with signing full name? Since I liked your style there I would have liked that somebody introduced you here. I read your parting comment on both sites but I still know and welcome you as Ben..Who.
LPS